Sumanjeet says people kept telling her to get an ultrasound check and abort all four of her daughters. They told her she wouldn't have enough money for a suitable dowry. Although Sumanjeet wasn't quite sure how she was going to raise them, she knew it was a crime to get rid of them.

"Why are they killing girls, while they're still in the womb? It's a sin for which they'll have to be answerable to God. Small, cute girls like a doll. They kill her in the womb? It's a sin," Sumanjeet weeps.

The brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old student in New Delhi and the wave of outrage that followed brought to light the daily suffering of many Indian women. Thousands of people took to the streets to protest not just rape but the discrimination many women in India often have to live with throughout their lives.

Opinion: India's rape problem needs a rewiring of society's attitude

A Thomson Reuters Foundation expert poll last year ranked India as the world's fourth most dangerous country for a woman, behind only Afghanistan, Congo and Pakistan.

Even though the practice is outlawed, 300,000 to 600,000 female fetuses are aborted every year in India because of the preference for boys, according to a 2011 study by The Lancet. And the discrimination that begins while in the womb continues throughout a girl's life.